Good morning and welcome to Kid News. I'm Tori. Today is Thursday, March 19, 2020 and we begin with the earliest first day of spring to hit the calendar in 124 years. The Vernal Equinox usually falls on either March 20th or 21st, based on a complicated

equation of leap years, centuries, and the length of time it takes Earth to revolve around the sun.

This year, all those factors added up to spring arriving at 11.49 p.m. Eastern Standard time,

or just before midnight tonight. So other than a fancy way of

saying spring, what exactly does Vernal Equinox mean? It's Latin. Vernal means

fresh or new and Equinox means equal and is used to mark the moment when the earth's

tilt is such that the sun shines directly on the equator making the lengths of day and night nearly the same.

For those of you living in the southern hemisphere, it's opposite day,

with today marking the start of your fall or autumnal equinox.

Get comfortable.

That's the message Governor Gavin Newsom is delivering to 6 million kids in California.

Yesterday he warned parents that students in grades K to 12

could be out of the classroom until the fall. Nearly 99% of the state's public

schools are closed and the governor, who has three young

children of his own, has shared his own family's frustration with the new normal.

Earlier this week, Kansas became the first state to officially order schools closed through June, but it will likely

not be the last.

According to Education Week, 39 states have closed schools, at least least temporarily meaning nearly 40 million kids in the

U.S. are now homeschooling. Wash your hands. Those three little but very

important words are ones you're no doubt hearing again and again.

Now, health experts are adding another three.

Wash your phone.

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